Chrystelle Baran

One of the most prized possessions in Chrystelle Baran and Nick Ferneyhough’s home is a French trumeau oil painting in heavenly golds and Aegean blues, depicting the love story of Zeus and Europa. The resplendent 19th-century mirror decoration portrays the moment the Greek god transforms into a bull to carry the princess of Tyre away from the shore where she was picking flowers. According to the myth, the area they travelled together was named Europe in honour of their story.

As purveyors of luxury antiques and furnishings from Europa’s domain, Chrystelle and Nick have turned sourcing homeware for their Baran de Bordeaux boutique into an art form of its own. With the pair journeying to the continent for four months of the year, often staying at Chrystelle’s family home in Gironde, Bordeaux, they are used to being immersed in beautiful surroundings – from villages with stone walls smoothed by years of appreciative hands running across them to fortified castles where time stand still between hand-carved walls with tactile gilded details, whole decorative worlds unto themselves. “Going back on my trips, I’m always learning about something new or visiting some beautiful chateau,” says Chrystelle, sitting on a Louis XVI armchair next to Nick in their spacious family room. “I just really wanted to bring a bit of my culture here.”

True to their travels, the couple’s Auckland property is decorated with a refined collection of antiques, mostly French, with custom de Gournay wallpaper providing a backdrop for these daydream believers. But just following the path through their classically clipped garden to the arched entrance – passing a golden, 20th-century Danish armillary sphere sundial along the way – is enough for any visitor to know they’ve arrived somewhere special, before even crossing the threshold.

The Remuera home was built in the 1930s but designed in a pure Georgian style by master architect Horace Massey. It’s an exercise in balanced creativity and restraint throughout, with black jarrah weatherboards giving the home a relaxed and romantic appearance, brought into line by more formal, white, small-paned Georgian windows. A terraced back garden of heady bay laurel and jasmine is contained by way of clipped camellias and buxus.

Without a hint of art deco reference in sight, the home sets its own design rules – Italian rococo candlestands look right at home beneath a contemporary oil painting by Mexican artist Ulises Toache. “It’s not all about wall-to-wall antiques,” says Chrystelle. “It’s about having pieces that are completely one-off,” adds Nick.

The formal lounge not only has candelabras and contemporary paintings but a mid-century slate coffee table, Louis XVI armchairs, an English Chesterfield sofa and a 17th-century portrait of Philippe, the Duke of Orleans. The interiors are in good company – Philippe was the younger brother of Versailles’ Sun King, Louis XIV, with excellent taste and a progeny of royalty that led him to be called the “grandfather of Europe”.

Acting also as a music room, the lounge is a place to unwind at night – especially in winter when a roaring fire is reflected in a convex mirror designed by Line Vautrin, a French modernist artist dubbed “the poetess of metal” by American Vogue in the 1940s. An upright piano next to the entry and two vintage Gibson electric guitars, from the 1950s, are placed so Nick can’t walk past them without playing a tune, whether it’s a private concert for Chrystelle or to entertain guests during drinks. (The original maid’s quarters upstairs have been converted into a recording studio for Nick, who is a professional composer.) “We just love sharing our house with our friends and they love coming here,” says Chrystelle. “Every room is really, really used.”

“We just love sharing our house with our friends and they love coming here.”

Like all the zones in the home, the formal lounge’s antiques and vintage finds are styled together for a contemporary look – easeful yet elegant. It’s important to these interiors experts that their Baran de Bordeaux pieces don’t become artefacts but feel approachable and inviting for everyday living.

The high-ceilinged dining room is an intimate space in the innermost sanctum of the home. Here a silvered Louis XV chandelier appears to float above a French cherrywood table with Louis XV chairs tucked underneath. Painted antiques like these seats are Chrystelle and Nick’s speciality, having brought similar pieces to New Zealand when they first opened their antique and collectables store 18 years ago. Delicately faded, these items are feminine but not fussy – the perfect halfway point for their clients, with many pieces sent to beach homes around the country (including the couple’s own Coromandel barn, which is styled at the intersection between Provence and the Hamptons.)

While the doorways in this heritage home have been widened to allow for easy, modern living – it’s possible to sit on the white linen settee in the living area and look through the dining room, entranceway and lounge to the private garden and its stone Poseidon statue – the couple were careful to keep a sense of sanctuary from room to room. “You could just pull out all the walls and make it completely open plan but you’d lose something,” says Nick. “We’ve tried to make every room feel really different. Each room is an event.”

As the exclusive representatives for the brand in New Zealand, the pair have carefully selected custom de Gournay wallpaper throughout the home, using tranquil tones that enhance a sense of serene symmetry.

In the dining room, the botanical Earlham design from the Chinoiserie collection has been hand-painted on tea paper in a custom shade based on the original paint colour of an 18th-century Venetian secretaire in the room. The powder room features the Panoramic Le Bresil design, in a monochromatic grey, which wraps around the sides so it’s jungle scene can be seen from the entry hallway.

Upstairs, the Plum Blossom design from the Japanese and Korean collection has been chosen for the newly redecorated master bedroom. It’s customised in a neutral colourway to complement the muted palette of taupe and grey-blue which encompasses the painted Louis XVI bedside tables and bedhead.

The French oak parquet floors in this room were picked out to complement a bare oak chest of drawers from the 18th-century Regence, and even a showpiece silver Louis XV chandelier made by Maison Bagues politely sits above the scene without making its presence too known. “It’s all about everything looking right and being beautiful around me,” says Chrystelle.

“It’s all about everything looking right and being beautiful around me.”

A conservatory at the far end of the room has been removed, in favour of a continuous interior. In this space a 17th-century French sofa is paired with a 1920s Louis Vuitton trunk. Found throughout the home, these chests are another forte of the Baran de Bordeaux store, accumulated in a range of original textiles – monogram, chequerboard, Trianon grey and more – and dating from the 1870s century through to the 1930s, the golden age of collectable Vuitton trunks.

Chrystelle and Nick, who met while on overseas experiences in London, both have a love of collecting that has been passed on by their respective parents. Chrystelle grew up with 18th-century French pieces found in her Bordeaux home town, while Nick, an Aucklander, learned an appreciation for 19th-century New Zealand designs. The European styles now reign supreme in their home, usurping all else with their emotive touch. “Italians and French people are so romantic and it really shows in their interiors,” says Chrystelle. “They like showing their emotions and that reflects in their antiques.”

The look of French antiques, in particular, was directly influenced by the style of the king on the throne at the time – Louis XV’s curved furniture with a lightness of form, for example, gives way to the neo- classical straight lines of the decorative Louis XVI era. As she looks to the mythical trumeau oil painting on the wall above, Chrystelle imparts one last, very French piece of advice from her instinctive interior- design philosophy: “It’s about being comfortable with your own taste and believing in what you’re doing.” ■